Sunday, October 16, 2011

Chocolate Covered Everything

I love chocolate. I'll eat just about any kind but I really love the way a good dark chocolate tastes. I love chocolate ice cream, chocolate candy, chocolate milk. I have a sugar addiction, so I work really hard to not buy candy all the time like I used to. A typical lunch for me five years ago was a huge bag of peanut m&ms and a medium coke slurpee... And yeh, that was right before I got really sick and figured out gluten is my enemy.

I'm really stringent with food labels, except for when it comes to chocolate and junk food. I have yet to find a candy bar, that's not at whole foods, that is labeled gluten free. The same goes for ice cream. Only the fancy brands mention allergen precautions. Since my move to Denver, I've taken to making my own ice cream. It prevents gluten contamination, reduces how much ice cream I eat, and therefore my sugar intake. I could write a whole series of posts on my ice cream adventures!

My last boss worked for a chocolate distributer and she endowed me with a huge bar of semi-sweet chocolate. Part of it finally got put to use last night when a friend brought over a container of strawberries! Here's the chocolate covered insanity that ensued...

Step 1: Using a double boiler, or a precarious two pot set up like mine, melt the chopped chocolate or chocolate chips. Melt it slowly on a medium heat, stirring frequently, especially once it really starts to melt. The water needs to touch the bottom of the small pot but water should not get into the chocolate. I used three chunks of chocolate from my huge bar. I have no idea how much that was, but it looked like a good amount for the pot.

Step 2: Thoroughly wash and dry the strawberries. We had one pint minus a few because they looked so good!

Step 3: When the chocolate is thoroughly melted, remove it from the heat, dip those strawberries, and stir the chocolate as needed.

Step 4: Place the strawberries on parchment paper and put the in the in the fridge to set. Try not to eat them yet! They will taste even better when the chocolate has hardened.

Then, I added a big scoop of peanut butter to the chocolate and put it back on to melt. Once it was melted and mixed, we dipped marshmallows in it! I tried to set them upright but quickly gave up on that dream.

There was still chocolate left when we ran out of marshmallows! My friend noticed the box of rice chex on top of my fridge and suggested we make muddy buddies, or as I grew up calling it, puppy chow. We improvised based on the directions on the box. It's almost gone already...

The strawberries and marshmallows are for a dinner party tonight. It is so hard to ignore them every time I open my fridge!